Global View Page 2
The British Petroleum Oil Spill
The most catastrophic pollution event in U.S. history began on April 20, 2010 when an explosion on a semi-submersible offshore drilling rig (the Deepwater Horizon) caused a wellhead leak. When the leak was finally stopped by capping the wellhead on July 15, 2010, estimates of the amount of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico were well over 4.0 millions of barrels of oil. (Click on the link beneath the map below to watch an animation of the oil spill and to see statistics on where the oil went.)
Observed Oil Spill, May 5, 2010. NOAA-NESDIS. Click on this link to be taken to the NYTimes Oil Spill tracker animation. Press “play” to see how the oil spill moved.
Current estimates show that approximately 26% of the oil is still at or on the shore lines. Only approximately 17% was actually captured through containment systems. (While in the animation map, click on the tab for “Where oil has made landfall” to gain an appreciation for where this approximately 1.0 million barrels of oil is.) What does this tell us about Earth as a system? Can we really contain a spill of this magnitude?
Unfortunately, the actual environmental (and economical) costs of this are still being understood. We may not know the true effects for many years. Click here for a short video on current assessment research. Because this event was unprecedented, scientists are still trying to develop assessment tools (scientific methods) to understand the effects.
The explosion also tragically caused the death of 11 rig workers.
